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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate modern school assembly songs?

258 replies

MintyChapstick · 21/05/2016 19:18

Following on from a recent thread about those bloody awful modern class photos.

When I was growing up in the 90's we used to sing religious based songs like All Things Bright and Beautiful and Who Put the Colours in the Rainbow?Now they sing bloody weird shit about school rules, one about the lunchtime queaue. A few even have raps in them! They are hideous and to be quite frank, mostly drivel. For some reason I really pine for the songs I sang as a child.

It's nothing to do with school assemblies becoming more secular either, because they have to have collective worship as part of the curriculum and still say the Lords Prayer, hear Bible stories so I don't understand why they can't sing proper old songs?

OP posts:
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7
Travelledtheworld · 23/05/2016 00:07

Where are you posting the thread MotherBlueStocking?
It's not an AIBU topic !!!!

MotherBluestocking · 23/05/2016 00:14

I don't know - AIBU to know the words of every hymn in the English Hymnal?
How does one move a thread?

Travelledtheworld · 23/05/2016 00:16

Not sure if the answer to that is Sad or Spiritual.

I don't think you can move a thread unless you are MNHQ.

nagsandovalballs · 23/05/2016 06:51

I'm an avowed and entrenched atheist but I loved school hymns and still get the odd ear worm of a hymn 25 years later.

You can participate in hymn singing without ending up indoctrinated.

wanderings · 23/05/2016 07:18

When lamps are lighted in the town
The boats sail out to sea,
The fishers watch as night come down,
They work for you and me.

We had this one! A chorus of it once greeted the headmistress (who directed hymn practice) as she walked into our classroom; she wasn't flattered, she merely shouted that this was not a singing lesson.

There were also a lot of songs about optimism:
"Even when the darkest clouds are in the sky, you mustn't sigh and you mustn't cry;
just spread a little happiness as you go by. Please try!"

It also had the most tongue-twisting line:
"Upon the lists of optimists, and disregard the pessimists." All those S's don't lend themselves well to singing.

Aeroflotgirl · 23/05/2016 07:21

Loved All the Nations of the Earth, Who Put The Colours in The Rainbow, The Ink is Black, Autumn Days, If I HAd a Hammer. You cannot beat them.

thesockgap · 23/05/2016 09:19

On the subject of 70s/80s primary school hymn singing, can anyone help me with one that's been doing my head in for weeks?
It had a line that went "Doubting Thomas, from doubts be free... stop your doubting and follow me"
I can't find the rest of the words anywhere! I've googled, I've bought a copy of Come & Praise off ebay (but it turned out to be the updated version, not the blue one with the pictures of 70s kids on the front that we had at school)
Anyone I've asked has looked at me like I'm half soft.
Someone, somewhere must know what hymn it was??

2catsnowaiting · 23/05/2016 09:25

Sorry but I disagree. I grew up singing hymns at school, the vast majority of which had such old fashioned words most of us didn't really know what we were singing about, and which are totally irrelevant if you are not a practising Christian (ie most people in this country).

One of the reasons for choosing my kids' school is it is not religious. They sing lots of lovely songs, age appropriate, mostly about being kind to each other, loving our families, helping the environment etc. Much more relevant to primary school children in my opinion.

Fluffythefish · 23/05/2016 09:35

I'm pretty sure that the "Doubting Thomas" verse comes from a song called "Fisherman Peter, on the sea, drop your nets now and follow me" Oooh just found it in Kidsource 2. Its by Chris Mitchell and Doubting Thomas is the 5th verse.

NB those of you who want Colours of Day at your funeral. Lovely choice. BUT if you are being cremated just remember that the chorus goes "light up the fire and let the flame burn"....

user1463231665 · 23/05/2016 09:47

2cats, that's though that I like. It is one reason I always read trhe children at bed time both modern but also older books so they gained that huge wide vocabulary and general knowledge you don't get with dumbed down modern stuff. (I am an atheist hymn lover by the way). It is not just the harmonies which are so incredibly complex and beautiful in many hymns and stay with you for life but also the history and wide vocabulary that they give you. it is as if we have decided those 92% of children in state schools (or rather those state primaries which don't do hymns) will have ripped from them our culture and heritage and complexity and only those children whose parents pay school fees will keep it. Yet to retain it costs nothing at all.

thesockgap · 23/05/2016 09:50

Fluffythefish, THANK YOU, I'm sure that's it!! It's been stuck in my head for ages.... I'm going to try and find the whole song now!

MimiLeBonk · 23/05/2016 10:03

I have great memories of Lord of the Dance when I was 15

"They whipped and they stripped me, I was hung like a horse"

It was hilarious at the time I promise!

2catsnowaiting · 23/05/2016 10:26

Mimi, our favourite was "I was cold I was naked were you there were you there?"

That and the "virgin's womb" always got a bit of a snigger too.

2catsnowaiting · 23/05/2016 10:35

user1463231665 I totally agree about the wide vocab etc, I also read classics and a wide range of books with my kids for the same reason. However, when I do so we discuss the words they don't understand. Singing something you don't understand and not having it explained has no benefit at all. You may as well be singing in a language you don't understand without having it translated so you know what you are singing.

I sang a lot of choral music throughout my school days and while some of it is very beautiful, ploughing through 6 musically identical verses of some boring hymn tune sung in unison praising a god my children don't believe in, I do not consider preserving the culture and heritage of our country. My daughter is a keen singer, and I have no objection to her singing proper choral music as part of her musical education, simply because it has religious words. I do not believe that singing hymns in assembly is the same thing at all.

Aeroflotgirl · 23/05/2016 10:36

Could be tge song Follow me Follow me

MotherBluestocking · 23/05/2016 10:50

Actually I think there's a place for not understanding without having it explained. The human brain has such a strong drive to impose structures and patterns that children will generate their own meanings and pictures, which is an important part of learning to think creatively. A good example of this in literature is the bit in Ramona the Brave about the Star Spangled Banner. Another example is when we mishear song lyrics as something much more interesting than the original.

londonmummy1966 · 23/05/2016 10:52

I do think that a lot of the problem is the demise of the piano thumper. You can get backing track CDs for all the drivel but not for the proper hymns - well you probably can but it would be harder to find. My DCs (private) school actually appointed a head of music who couldn't play the piano.... A far cry from the 1970s when my old piano teacher was employed for a day a week by the local teacher training college to teach piano to those who hadn't learnt it so they could play nursery rhymes to their junior classes.

Personally I've always thought "fight the good fight" was a good way to start the day as you mean to go on!

On another topic did anyone ever play "English Breakfast" during hymn practice - every word that began with B was bacon, E eggs, S sausages etc. All things bacon and bacon, all creatures great and sausages.....

DeltaSunrise · 23/05/2016 11:41

I used to hate the hymn singing when I was at school but now as an adult I realise how good they were.

I wish my ds's school would teach/sing traditional hymns.

They went to a school disco a couple weeks ago. The DJ put on that "7 years" song and another one I can't remember, maybe that Bruno Mars one someone mentioned above. As soon as the songs started the whole room of 5-8 year olds burst out into song singing them word for word. I asked ds1 how he knew the words and he said they had been learning them in assembly. The DJ also played "I'm sexy and I know it" which I though was highly inappropriate for the age group he was playing for.

Last term they learnt all the words to "what does the fox say" which was fucking annoying.

Out of assembly, they are focusing on a whole school production of The Wizard of Oz so now I just have to listen to "Ding dong the witch is dead" over and over.

Bring back the hymns.....

peppansalt · 23/05/2016 11:45

Mimi.,, GrinGrin

toffee1000 · 23/05/2016 11:56

Delta Oh bloody hell not What Does The Fox Say. In school? Holy moly.

user1463231665 · 23/05/2016 12:03

I agree with mother on this. I have sung a lot in Latin and I never learned it at school but it had a hugely good influence on me. I certainly support the churches who moved away from most latin to English for mass as if you understand nothing that's not great but some is worth keeping. It kinds of seeps into you, good English, latin, harmonies and all the rest.

(I used to play the piano at school assembly when I was in the sixth form. I also played everyone walking in and out and sometimes I'd play a piece I'd composed and as we did with all pieces walked into and out of write it up on the blackboard on the stage - the one moment of glory for my piano compositions; they did not survive my teenage years. This was a school without a choir. I always looked forward to the carol service as we did more singing than usual).

Yes, schools find it hard to get teachers who play the piano these days. There was a time when every middle class home wanted a piano as the ultimate status symbol. Those days are long gone.

However things are better in some ways - I remember cycling for miles to buy sheet music from a second hand music shop. Now my son can get just about any music on line in seconds. I remember asking my mother to record Beethoven's 5th on a tape recorder when it came on radio 3 as it was my set work for GCSE music which I put myself in for and I could not afford to buy it. Nowadays just about any music is there on youtube if you can afford an internet connection and phone or PC.

Andrewofgg · 23/05/2016 12:05

The Department of Trendy Bollocks is in overdrive!

I used to go misty-eyed when DS's school sang Lord dismiss us with thy blessing at the end of term.

eyebrowsonfleek · 23/05/2016 12:09

What's everybody's take on the hand actions that they do when singing these days?

thelittleredhen · 23/05/2016 13:08

My DS and I love sharing hymns that he's been learning at school. If they're old ones, we sing them together and if it's a new one, he likes to teach them to me. Luckily, none of this new fangled rubbish that some posters are commenting about, but there's a lovely song that he's taught me that starts "my heart is like a singing bird"

Lancelottie · 23/05/2016 13:41

Our (state) school had a School Song in Latin about not taking credit for our own good deeds Hmm.

My dad's (state) school song had a line about 'Semper Sit in Flore', which he vaguely translated in his 11-yr-old brain as 'Always sitting on the floor'.

Who needs to know what you're singing about anyway?